Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel, Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries.--_Hamlet._

  As Jack expected, it did not take long for his friend Hampstead to showwhere the mistake about the three cents lay; and then they sallied forthfor a little stroll on King Street before dinner.

  They lived in adjoining chambers in the Tremaine Buildings on KingStreet. The rooms had been intended for law offices, and were reached bya broad flight of stairs leading up from the street below. Here theywere within five minutes' walk of their bank or the club at which theygenerally took their meals. Hampstead had first taken these roomsbecause they were in a manner so isolated in the throng of the city andafforded an uncontrolled liberty of ingress and egress to young menwhose hours for retiring to rest were governed by no hard and fastrules.

  A widow named Priest lived somewhere about the top of the building, withher son, who was known to the young gentlemen as Patsey. Mrs. Priestmade the beds, did the washing, attended to the fires, and was generallyuseful. She also cleaned offices, even to the uttermost parts of thegreat building, and altogether made a good thing of it; for besides theremunerations derived in these ways she had her perquisites. Forinstance, in the ten years of her careful guardianship of chambers andoffices in the building, she had never bought any coal or wood. Shepossessed duplicate keys for each room in her charge, and thus having alarge number of places to pillage she levied on them all, according tothe amount of fuel she could safely carry away from each place withoutits being missed. Young men who occupied chambers there never had togive away or sell old clothes, because they were never found to be inthe way. She asked for them when she wanted to cut them down for Patsey,because it would not do to have the owners recognize the cloth on him.The clothes which she annexed as perquisites she sold.

  Patsey was accustomed occasionally to go through the wardrobes of thegentlemen with his mother, while she made the beds in the morning, andhe then chose the garments that most appealed to his artistic taste.This interesting heir to Mrs. Priest's personal estate also had hisperquisites "unbeknownst to ma." He consumed a surprising amount oftobacco for one so young, and might frequently be seen parading KingStreet on a summer evening enjoying a cigar altogether beyond his yearsand income. His clothes bore the pattern of the fashion in vogue threeor four years back; and, despite some changes brought about by thescissors of Mrs. Priest, the material, which had been the best Torontocould provide, still retained much of the glory that had captivated KingStreet not so very long ago. Having finally declared war againsteducation in all its recognized branches, he generally took himself offearly in the day, and lounged about the docks, or derived anindifferently good revenue from the sale of ferry-boat tickets to theisland; and in various other ways did Patsey provide himself with theluxuries and enjoyments of a regular topsawyer.

  In the immediate neighborhood of Mrs. Priest, at an altitude in thebuilding which has never been exactly ascertained, dwelt Mr. MauriceRankin, barrister-at-law and solicitor of the Supreme Court. He residedin Chambers, No. 173 Tremaine Buildings, King Street, West, Toronto, andcertainly all this looked very legal and satisfactory on theprofessional card which he had had printed. But the interior appearanceof the chambers was not calculated to inspire confidence in theprofession of the law as a kind nurse for aspiring merit; and as forthe approach to No. 173, it was so intricate and dark in its last fewflights of stairs, that none but a practiced foot could venture up ordown without a light, even in the day-time. The room occupied by Mr.Rankin could never have been intended to be used as an office, orperhaps anything else, and consequently the numbers of the rooms in thebuildings had not been carried up to the extraordinary elevation inwhich No. 173 might now be found. Still, it seemed peculiar not to havethe number of one's chambers on one's card, if chambers should bementioned thereon, so he found that the rooms numbered below ended at172, and then conscientiously marked "No. 173" on his own door with apiece of white chalk. He also carefully printed his name, "Mr. MauriceRankin," on the cross-panel and added the letters "Q.C."--just to seehow the whole thing looked and assist ambition; but he hurriedly rubbedThe Q.C. out on hearing Mrs. Priest approach for one of her interminableconversations from which there was seldom any escape. When Rankin firstcame to Tremaine Buildings he lived in one of the lower rooms, nowoccupied by Jack Cresswell, and not without some style andcomfort--taking his meals at the club, as our friends now did. Hisfather, who had been a well-known broker,--a widower--kept his horses,and brought up his son in luxury. He then failed, after Maurice hadentered the Toronto University, and, unable to endure the break-up ofthe results of his life's hard work, he died, leaving Maurice a fewhundred dollars that came to him out of the life-insurance.

  It was with a view to economy that our legal friend came to live in theTremaine Buildings after leaving the university and articling himself asa clerk in one of the leading law firms in the city, where he got paidnothing. The more his little capital dwindled, the harder he worked.Soon the first set of chambers were relinquished for a higher, cheaperroom, and the meals were taken per contract, by the week, at a cheaphotel. Then he had to get some clothes, which further reduced the littlefund. So he took "a day's march nearer home," as he called it, andremoved his effects _au quatrieme etage_, and from that _aucinquieme_--and so on and up. Regular meals at hotels now belonged tothe past. A second-hand coal-oil stove was purchased, together with afew cheap plates and articles of cutlery; and here Rankin retired, whenhungry, with a bit of steak rolled up in rather unpleasant brown paper;and after producing part of a loaf and a slab of butter on a plate, hecooked a trifle of steak about the size of a flat-iron, and caroused.This he called the feast of independence and the reward of merit.

  Among his possessions could be found a wooden bed and bedding--clean,but not springy--also a small deal table, and an old bureau with bothhind-legs gone. But the bureau stood up bravely when propped against thewall. These were souvenirs of a transaction with a second-hand dealer.In winter he set up an old coal-stove which had been abandoned in anempty room in the building, and this proved of vast service, inasmuch asthe beef-steak and tea could be heated in the stove, thereby saving theprice of coal-oil. It will occur to the eagle-eyed reader that the priceof coal would more than exceed the price of coal-oil. On this pointRankin did not converse. Although he started out with as high principlesof honor as the son of a stock-broker is expected to have, it must beconfessed that he did not at this time buy his coal. Therefore there wasa palpable economy in the use of the derelict stove--to say nothing ofits necessary warmth. No mention of coal was ever made between Rankinand Mrs. Priest; but as Maurice rose in the world, intellectually andresidentially, Mrs. Priest saw that his monetary condition was depressedin an inverse ratio, and being in many ways a well-intentioned woman,she commenced bringing a pail of coal to his room every morning, whichgenerally served to keep the fire alight for twenty-four hours inmoderate weather. Maurice at first salved his conscience with the ideathat she was returning the coal she had "borrowed" from him during hismore palmy days. After the first winter, however, when he had suffered agood deal from cold, his conscience became more elastic and communistic;and ten o'clock P.M. generally saw him performing a solitary and gloomyjourney to unknown regions with a coal-scuttle in one hand and a woodenpail in the other. Jack Cresswell had come across this coal-scuttle onenight in a distant corridor. He filled it with somebody else's coal andcame up with it to Rankin's room--his face beaming with enjoyment--and,entering on tip-toe, whispered mysteriously the word "pickings." Then,after walking around the room in the stealthy manner of the stagevillain who inspects the premises before "removing" the infant heir, hedumped the scuttle on the floor and gasped, breathlessly, "A gift!"

  Rankin put aside Byles on Bills and arose with dignity: "What say you,henchman? Pickings? A gift? Ay, truly, a goodly pickings! Filched,perchance, from the pursy coal-bins of monopoly?"

  "Even so," was the reply, give
n with bated breath; and with his fingerto his lips, to imply that he was on a criminal adventure, Jack againinspected the premises with much stealth and agility, and disappeared asmysteriously as he had come. If Jack or Geoffrey ever saw anything lyingabout the premises they thought would be of use to Rankin, there was anocturnal steal, and up it went to Rankin's room. This was sport.

  In this way Rankin lived. With one idea set before him, he grappled withthe leather-covered books that came by ones and twos into his room,until, when the great struggle came at his final examinations, he wassurprised to find he had come out so well, and quite charmed when hereturned from Osgoode Hall to his dreary room, a solicitor of theSupreme Court and a barrister-at-law, with a light heart, and not asingle solitary cent in the wide world.